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| When Jesus said, "It Is Finished," He wasn't saying it because He was dying. He was saying that His work was finished. He had paid the terrible price for our sins and within three days after His burial, He would rise again.
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Then at the sixth hour, about noon as time was reckoned then,
darkness fell over the land like the black of midnight when there
is no moon. Clouds covered the sky with blackness. Winds blew.
The ground shook as an earthquake struck. Rocks rolled from their
places. Graves were opened. (After Jesus was raised from the dead,
the dead whose graves were opened rose out of the graves and walked
in the city, but they could not raise up until after Jesus arose
for He was the first to be raised from the dead. Otherwise, what
He did would have been of no consequence if others had risen from
the dead before Him.) During these events, the veil of the temple
was rent (torn in two) that separated the people from the High
Priests whose job it was to offer sacrifices for the sins of the
people. This was done because the veil was no longer needed. Jesus
had become the one sacrifice for time immemorial for all people.
No longer would lambs be offered up by the High Priests for the
sins of the people. Jesus had become the sacrificial lamb of God
and He paid the terrible price for the sins of all men from that
day forward. All we have to do is to accept that He died in our
place and repent of our sins and ask Him to save us.
At the ninth hour, about 3:00 in the afternoon, Jesus cried out,
"Father, Father, why have You forsaken me?"
God had temporarily turned His back on Jesus at the moment
when all of the sins of the world were laid upon Him because God
cannot tolerate sin.
In the last minutes of His agony, Jesus whispered, "Father,
into Your hands I give my spirit."
He died when the sins of the world were laid upon Him and His
work was finished. No one killed Him. He gave up His life willingly
for us so that we might live. His spirit wasn't taken from Him-He
gave it up himself, anxious to be back in Heaven with His Holy
Father after His work was over.
A soldier, quaking with terror, heard and saw when Jesus gave
up His spirit and when He uttered those last words, and he was
heard to murmur, "Truly, we have killed the Son of God."
